This article talks about the importance, purpose and uses of standardized, grand scale evaluations in learning and school related achievements that have been common place in Latin-America and the Caribbean. A grand scale standardized evaluation is that which enables us to produce comparable information about the performance of students belonging to different cultural and/or regional backgrounds; including but not limited to country of residence. All the while offering a bird’s eye view of the performance of a country, state or province, by the application of tests and evaluating different samples.

The present work can help those taking educational policies decisions to understand and analyze existing options by looking at their purposes and uses (of the evaluation systems) and whatever they entail. Giving them the tools needed to avoid simplistic approaches which can result in ill-conceived or erroneously implemented systems, leading to perverted results, tainting the educational system, wasting resources and discrediting external evaluation. The authors suggest that in order to make a wise investment in evaluation, one must have a clear goal, a shared responsibility philosophy, a technical quality design (in accordance with the goals set), a strong sense of service toward teachers, a clear political will (standing up to problem and deficiencies unearthed by the evaluation.) Time and resources are also needed in order to build a long term, competent technical unit.

Original Reference:
Ravela, P., Arregui, P., Valverde, G., Wolfe, R., Ferrer, G., Martínez, F., Aylwin, M. y Wolff, L. (2008). Las Evaluaciones Educativas que América Latina Necesita. Documento de Trabajo N. 40. Santiago de Chile: PREAL.

National evaluation, learning evaluations, national assesment systems, result distribution, uses of evaluations.